


I

by manicpixiedream



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: F/M, Gen, No Deaths AU, im not sure how else to describe that, tw // cigarette usage, tw // drug and alcohol usage, tw // noncon, tw // self harm, tw // violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-09 15:47:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15270855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manicpixiedream/pseuds/manicpixiedream
Summary: If it were ever in doubt that I loved Patrick Hockstetter with all of my being, I will go on record now to say that I do love him. Present tense, past tense, always have and ever will, forever and always. Rain or shine, thick and thin, rich or poor, I will love Patrick Hockstetter. But this is not a love story, this is simply a real story.





	1. I Hurt

**Author's Note:**

> This is a "no deaths AU", meaning that instead of dying/being eaten alive by Pennywise, Its victims were simply rendered catatonic like Beverly was, and kept around like trophies in Its lair. Georgie still loses his arm, but none of the victims die, and are able to be recovered after Pennywise is weakened.

“If it were ever in doubt that I loved Patrick Hockstetter with all of my being, I will go on record now to say that I do love him. Present tense, past tense, always have and ever will, forever and always. Rain or shine, thick and thin, rich or poor, I will love Patrick Hockstetter. But this is not a love story, this is simply a real story. 

 

It’s funny, looking back at everything that happened. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, as they say. I can see every mistake in real time, every red flag that I ignored. It hurts, in a way, remembering everything that happened and seeing now everything that it amounted to in the end.”

* * *

  
  


**_I_ **

 

_ I Hurt _

 

My mom cried when the doctor said the words “delusional psychosis” and my name in the same sentence. She cried when my step dad squeezed her hands in his own and led her out of the hospital, she cried for the entire car ride home, and I still heard her crying at midnight, when the condensation on our fast food cups had long formed a puddle on our bedside tables. She didn’t understand, it didn’t sound right, it couldn’t be right. No daughter of hers, no, never. 

 

I didn’t cry at all. I hadn’t cried since I was first admitted into the hospital a week prior. I hadn’t cried when my roommate miscarried, I hadn’t cried when I watched a girl with a bleeding eye dragged out of the cafeteria, I hadn’t cried when a boy told me he was never going home. I hadn’t cried when I returned to my bedroom, covered in a week’s film of dust, left untouched by the anxious and disturbed housemates in every other room. 

 

I simply sat on my bed, listened to my mom crying in the other room, and lit up a cigarette. The seventeen year old delusional psychotic named Lu, staring holes into the wall and wondering when it would be her turn to cry again. 

 

The tears would never come.

 

My mom spent the next two weeks crying off and on. She nursed her grief with a bottle of Smirnoff Cupcake and television dramas. She tried talking to me, but she couldn’t look at me without breaking down. It filled my heart with a dreamy sort of bitterness. I didn’t exactly blame myself, per se, more so the circumstances of my coming of age. 

 

Maybe I was bitter at her.

 

She tried to talk to me again a week later, when she knocked on the bedroom door and welcomed herself in without waiting for my response, as she always did. She was holding a box under her arm, and I regarded it with a dry, unrepentant stare.

 

“Lulu…” She sat the box down, and I saw that it was filled with bubble wrap and not much else. “Sweetheart…” I glanced up at her, watching as she approached my bedside and knelt down beside it. The sound of her joints cracking broke the white noise of my box fan. Her hands, clammy and tipped with sharp, slightly dirty nails took my own and squeezed tight enough to hurt. There was no comfort in her grip, only pain. “Please don’t be mad at me.”

 

“What?” I asked, concerned not for her, but for whatever bullshit decision she’d made in my stead now. And as harsh as that might sound, there was no better way to frame the impulsive decisions she made-- bullshit. Her impulsiveness was unfortunately inherited by me, but they at least diagnosed mine. Borderline Personality Disorder and my name didn’t make my mother cry.

 

“Your father,” (step-father, Dwayne, nothing else, no more no less, and I held the same amount of dry unrepentance for him that I did the box of bubble-wrap) “and I have been thinking. You spend all of your time in this… stuffy old room, with the box fan going, or the stereo playing. You don’t even watch T.V., honey…” She stood up, only to sit at the side of the bed and subsequently inside of my personal space. “You need a change of pace, and we’ve known that for a while now… But we finally have an opportunity to find one.”   
  
“So, we’re moving.” I said with no semblance of emotion in my voice. No excitement, no anger, nothing she could pick out and use to make her next response. She opened her mouth and shut it, her thin lips covered in a sheen of gloss and sweat. “Because Dwayne’s uncle laid him off. Yeah, I know. You talk a lot louder than you think.” And cried a lot louder than she thought, but if i mentioned it, she’d start up again, and I didn’t want to deal with that.

 

“Your father found a new job at a farm in Derry.” She instinctively reached for the messy, graying blonde braid over her shoulder and toyed with it as she spoke. “Derry, Maine.”

 

“M… Maine?” I didn’t mean to stutter, but it came as such a shock to hear another state’s name in regards to our relocation. We had never set foot outside of countylines, much less statelines. “Are you shitting me?”   
  
The blow to my leg came fast and I didn’t process it, really. She always hit me whenever I cursed, but it was nothing to call DHS about. She just didn’t like it when I sounded like she had at my age.

 

“No, I’m not  _ shitting _ you. Good god, you sound like me.” She sighed and the age lifted from her face for an instant. Her eyes dropped down to the carpet and she tried to work out her next words. “I brought, um.” She turned around to refer to the box of bubblewrap on the floor. “A box, so you could start packing. The bubblewrap is for valuables, I know you love your ceramics, and… Yeah.” She looked back at me and offered a sad smile. “So, you’re not mad at me?”   
  
“No, mom.” I sighed, though the sound hitched when she leaned forward and wrapped me up in a hug as tight and as painful and as meaningless as her grip. “Oof.”

 

“I’m so glad…” She was crying again, and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Maybe the doctors really were onto something when it came to my psychosis-- the empathy I had for her was dwindling more and more by the day. “I just want what’s best for you, baby… I love you so much, you know?”

 

“I love you too.” I say, watching as she pulls away and wipes at her slightly red eyes. The green had faded to a deep, forest-at-night color. It was pretty, if not a little off putting for anyone who knew what that meant for her. “Thanks for the box.”   
  
“Sure, sure.” She stands up, sniffling again and wiping her nose. “Goodness, I’ve got to stop all this crying, I’m gonna get another migraine.” She fans her eyes and smiles sadly at me. I hated when she smiled at me like that. “I’ll be back later with more boxes, and we can discuss dinner, okay? Maybe you can come watch a movie with me and your father tonight. Maybe?”

 

“Sure, if I can pick it.” I say, and that makes her smile wider than I’ve seen her smile in days. She hugs me again, and I let out a shaky, uncomfortable breath but hug her back. “Love you, mom.”

 

“I love you too.” She lets me go and puts the box on my bed, before making her leave the same way she came in. I glance at the box and reach for it, dragging it closer to me and swinging my legs over the side of the bed. I look at my shelf of ceramic tea sets and clown dolls, and decide it would be best to start packing.

 

What the hell was even in Derry, Maine, anyway?


	2. I Hate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A wasp buzzes around my head but loses interest, flying off to investigate the Hockstetter rosebush. But much like us, it too sensed something very, very wrong, and unlike us, wisely flew off in the other direction.

 

_I Hate_

 

 

 

The answer was nothing. Zilch, nada, zip, absolute fuck all was in Derry, Maine. Nothing but a lot of crows, a lighthouse, a movie theatre, and a ton of other kids just as bored and just as restless as I was.

 

The neighborhood we moved into was mixed income, mostly middle and upper middle class. Towards the end of the block, there were more swanky, Colonial style houses built with three floors max and patriotic windmills in their trimmed front yards.

 

Our next door neighbor was one of these types. Mr and Mrs Hockstetter, and their boy, Patrick, who was nowhere to be found. The mom was tall and willowy with graying red hair and bright red acrylics, and the dad was thin and pale with balding dark hair and a tweed jacket. They both had dull green eyes, nearly gray.

 

Mrs Hockstetter spotted us as she was watering her rosebush, her floppy sunhat and bright pink sunglasses making her impossible not to notice as she whistled and waved us over. Dwayne nodded to my mother with raised eyebrows, her cue to take the social plug, and she wrapped her fingers around my arm and pulled me along with her to say hello.

 

“Hi, hi there!” She called, waving her hand like the retired pageant dog she was. “Hello! You must be the new neighbors! I’m Roseanne Hockstetter, nice to meet you! Oh-- Oh, honey! Tom! Tom, come meet the new neighbors!” She called into the house, and I had to step aside to avoid the spray from the hose in her hand. She turned around and her chapped lips dropped open. “Oh, my gosh, I am so sorry, sweetheart! Did I spray you?”  
  
“No, it’s fine, no worries.” I said, offering a tired, just-moved-in-let-me-go-nap smile. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Hockstetter.”   
  
“I’m Kelly Avance, and this is my daughter, Lu.” My mother put her hand on my shoulder and brushed my hair away from my neck. “My husband, Dwayne, is just inside. I hope you’ll excuse him, he’s busy moving all of our boxes in.”

 

As if on cue, Dwayne stepped out of the house and waved to Mrs Hockstetter, who waved back exuberantly.

 

“Oh, he’s tall!” She laughed, turning off the hose and putting it aside. “Military?”  


“Sure is.” Mom smiled tightly and squeezed my shoulder. “Lu is just starting her senior year at Derry High School next year… is it a good school?”

 

“Oh!” Roseanne broke into a smile and looked over at me, and I fought to match it though I’m certain I just looked uncomfortable. “You’ll be in the same class as my boy! Patrick is my son, but he’s out with his friends right now.” She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her gardening apron. “Oh, he’s always out with his friends. He’d be such a sweet boy if he’d just cut his hair and go hunting with his father sometime…” She pressed a hand to her face, her gaze growing distant. “Not to say he isn’t sweet, it’s just… ever since Avery…” She trailed off, before suddenly calling out to her husband again. “Tom! Oh, Tom! Come meet the neighbors, honey! Baseball can wait!”

 

“No, really, it’s alright! Maybe some other time?” My mother insisted, attempting to usher the two of us away, before the willowy and sad looking Thomas Hockstetter stepped out of the house, letting the screen door shut behind him and spooking himself. He approached, looking at the two of us through bleary bottlecap glasses.

 

“Ah, hello.” He said, holding his hand out to shake. “Thomas Hockstetter, but you can call me Tom. Thomas was my father.” My mother shakes his hand, and I follow suit. It felt like it would crumble and turn to dust under my fingertips. “Nice to meet you. You just moved in?”

 

“Yes, dear, I already asked them that.” Roseanne laid a hand on his arm and smiled at us. “I was just telling them about Patrick. Lu, here, right?” She raised her pencilled on eyebrows and I nodded. “Will be in his class next year, they’re the same age.”

 

“Oh, I see.” He opened his mouth to say something, when the distant sound of rock music and squealing tires interrupted him. We all looked up as a dark blue trans am four door turned the corner and sped down the street, skidding to a stop just in front of the Hockstetter driveway.

 

We all watched as the door opened and a flood of smoke clouded out. A tall, very tall, young man no older than eighteen stood out of it, extending to his full height of at least six foot or close to it. I could tell immediately from his willowy silhouette, long limbs, spidery fingers, and dark if-only-he’d-cut-his-hair that this was the aforementioned Patrick Hockstetter.

 

He was holding something in one hand and when he came closer I saw that it was a lighter. A wallet chain hung around his hips, stuffed into his black jeans that hugged his long legs, and he wore a dark blue button up undone over a white t-shirt.

 

“Patrick, there you are! Perfect timing, come meet the neighbors, please.” Roseanne said, though her voice grew meeker and meeker over time. Tom refused to make eye contact with his son, keeping his eyes on the white picket fence between us. I felt my mother’s nails dig into me hard, enough that it made my eyebrows furrow together. She was picking up on the same vibe that something was very, very wrong with the Hockstetter family.

 

“Dad, can I have some cash to buy some beer for the boys?” Grammatically, Patrick’s question was in fact just that, but his delivery made it more of a statement. There was no yes or no response intended. Tom was already reaching for his wallet, when Roseanne pushed his hand down and tried to give her son a firm look.

 

“After you meet the neighbors, look! This is Lu.” She reached out, putting a hand on my shoulder and I honestly wished she hadn’t have directed attention towards me, as the moment Patrick’s hazel greens met mine, it felt as if my lungs were being slowly crushed in my chest. I wanted to drop it, but I held his gaze for a long moment, expecting him to look away. He didn’t. “She’s your age, and she’ll be in your class next year. Why don’t you try to get along with each other?”

 

“She can come.” Patrick says, his eyes dropping down finally, but nowhere good. I felt a pang of humiliation and disgust as he openly checked me out in front of both of our parents. “You wanna come?”

 

“Actually--” My mom gripped my arm hard enough to break skin and pulled me away. “Lulu needs to help unpack in her room, right, hon?” She said, and I winced a little but nodded.

 

“Nice to meet you, Patrick.” I said, my voice cracking a little from the pain. “Thank you for the invitation. Maybe next time-- Ow.”

 

“Maybe next time.” Patrick holds my stare for a long moment before I turn away to take the box my mother is shovelling into my arms. A wasp buzzes around my head but loses interest, flying off to investigate the Hockstetter rosebush.

 

But much like us, it too sensed something very, very wrong, and unlike us, wisely flew off in the other direction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is something strange afoot on Cherry Avenue in Derry, Maine.


	3. I Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I just wish you’d have some friends, you know?” Mom looked up at me, her eyes sweet and sad just like her smile the day she told me we were moving out. “I don’t want this to just be like it was in Arkansas, and… as weird as Patrick makes me feel, he seemed interested in… Being friends too.”

 

_ I Know _

  
  
  


July in Derry meant two things: intense heat, or intense storms. It also meant the Independence Day parade, but that wasn’t due for another few days. For me, it meant sitting up in my room, as I had before the move, and listening to the stereo. 

 

Mom and Dwayne had a big argument the night of our move in, namely about Patrick Hockstetter. My mom had tried to tell me to stay far, far away from him, but my step dad, thinking he knew everything, insisted that I needed at least one friend. And if he had a group of friends, even better! She wanted me to interact with others, didn’t she? Did she want this to end up like it was in Arkansas?

 

The result was inconclusive, but a week later, when my mother saw that my conditions wouldn’t change at all from the way that they were prior to the move, she gave a bit. I had no interest in being or not being forbade from interacting with Patrick Hockstetter, in fact, I had no interest in much of anything.

 

But on the morning of Independence Day, as I was getting dressed after my shower, she knocked on the door to my room and entered without waiting for my response. I looked up and pulled my dress on, a simple sundress meant for Sunday service, but no one in this house had done such a thing since the 70s. 

 

“You look fancy.” She said, as she always did whenever I wore it, and walked over to adjust it, as she always did whenever I wore it. I let her, fluffing my hair in the mirror before putting on my glasses. Simple wire frames, round lenses, nothing too eye catching and easily broken. “Sweetheart, your father and I were talking and… Maybe you should go try and talk to Patrick Hockstetter again. You know, next door?” She sat down on my bed as I looked back at her.

 

“I thought you…  _ forbade _ me?” I said this dramatically, wiggling my fingers as if recounting a scary story. She scoffed and looked down, her fingernails tapping against her knees. “Change of heart?”

 

“I just wish you’d have some friends, you know?” Mom looked up at me, her eyes sweet and sad just like her smile the day she told me we were moving out. “I don’t want this to just be like it was in Arkansas, and… as weird as Patrick makes me feel, he seemed interested in… Being friends too.” She stands up, taking my hands, and I let her hold them in her painful, useless grip.

 

“Yeah, being friends.” I smirk a little and she scoffs. 

 

“Whaaat! He seemed friendly enough!” She insists and I giggle.

 

“Mom, he was checking me out.” I say, and she groans, slapping her hands to her red face.

 

“I don’t want to  _ hear _ that shit! I don’t want to hear it!” She makes a disgusted sound and covers her face, shaking it. “Oh, ugh, no! He looks like a monkey!” I bark out a laugh, leaning back against my vanity and she laughs too. “What? He does!”

 

“Mom, holy shit.” I laugh harder when she slaps my arm.

 

“Hey, just because I said it doesn’t mean you can.” She scoffs and grabs the dish towel she had brought in here. “Listen, Roseanne invited us over for a grill out. Come with us, talk to Patrick. Try and make friends. Please?” She gives me a puppy pout, and I roll my eyes.

 

“Alright, alright. I’ll talk to flirty monkey.” I say, grinning when she rolls her eyes right back. I suppose I really was her daughter. She thanks me for it and says she loves me, giving me a tight hug before making her leave to finish washing the dishes.

 

It wasn’t much longer before we went to the Hockstetter home, long enough for mom to fuss about finding her earring back, and Dwayne to take a shower. When we went over, I saw the blue trans am in the driveway, and no one inside of it. I assumed Patrick and his friends were in the house.

 

My mother knocked on the door and Roseanne answered, wearing a bright white polo with a red, white, and blue bowtie and high waisted jeans. I couldn’t help but snort, covering my mouth with my hand and receiving a light push from a smirking Dwayne.

 

Mrs. Hockstetter welcomed us inside, and taking a single look around let me know just how neurotic she was. It was a shoes-off house to start, and the walls were filled with polished and framed family photos through the years. In the younger photos, there was a baby boy. In the older photos, there was no baby Hockstetter boy. Just Patrick, which reminded me of the way she trailed off when mentioning an ‘Avery’.

 

My suspicions were confirmed when I spotted a baby blue urn on the mantle, the name Avery painted on in gold cursive. It felt like a bucket of ice cold water hit me the moment I saw it, and my mother followed my gaze and paled in a similar fashion.

 

“Patrick! Patrick, honey, come downstairs!” We all looked up when Roseanne called for her son up the stairs. Tom was in the backyard, we could see that much through the back porch doors. “Please!” She added, and a beat later, the only son came down, with a few new faces trailing behind him. “Patrick, you remember Lu, right?” 

 

He looked over at me, and I felt that same lung-crushing sensation from before. My mom instinctively grabbed the back of my sundress and I really wished she weren’t touching me. Patrick nodded, and I watched in slight horror and slight interest as his tongue swept over his lips.

 

“Why don’t you boys take her with you? Surely she doesn’t want to hang around this stuffy old house. As long as the two of you come back for dinner.” Mrs Hockstetter asks, and Patrick shrugs her hand off of his shoulder before turning to her.

 

“Sure, mom.” He says, though without an ounce of respect in his tone. “Allowance? And I’ll need to pay for… Lu.” He looks over at me and it felt like a bird flapped its wings in my ribcage. 

 

“I--” My mom starts, and then trails off when Dwayne squeezes her arm. “I… um, here, honey.” She fishes her wallet out and holds a twenty dollar bill out to me. “I never let a man pay for me in high school.” She winks at Roseanne, who laughs and hands Patrick a fifty dollar bill anyhow. I had a feeling the extra wasn’t for me.

 

“I like that! Alright, have fun, you guys.” She says, putting her wallet away and Patrick nodded towards the door. I wait for him to pass by and follow him towards the door.

 

“Ah, Lu, honey--” My mom stops me before I can leave, and the rest of the boys pass by me and out of the door. “Stay safe. Please.” She says, and I nod before walking out after them. The driver, a tall, broad shouldered man with a baseball cap stands in front of the driver side door.

 

“Alright, it’s a four door, so you’re gonna have to squish in the back with Patrick and Victor. I’m Reggie, by the way.” He holds out his hand for me to shake and I take it.

 

“Lu.” I respond. He nods and slips in the driver’s seat. I walk around to the back, opening the door and seeing that Patrick and Victor were  _ very _ much taking up the entire seat. Victor, I could only imagine, was the one with the bleached undercut and the resting bitch face.

 

“What?” Patrick asks, flicking the lighter in his hand on and off. “There’s plenty of room.” he pats his knee, his tongue pushing at his bottom lip and I give him a look. “Fine. Don’t ride then.”

 

“...” I sigh and climb in, sitting sideways across his knees and awkwardly sandwiching my legs between his. 

 

“There we go.” he slams the door shut and raises his eyebrows almost dramatically at me. “Nice and comfy, huh?” I don’t respond, and the one in the passenger seat turns around to look at me. He’s a mean looking motherfucker, with a dirty blonde mullet and a dark green t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off.

 

“You ever talk?” He says, a cigarette hanging from his lips. Patrick holds his hand out, prompting him as Henry, and passenger seat hands him one. “You smoke?”

 

“Yeah.” I say, and he grins.

 

“Me too.” He muses, and everyone else cracks up. He holds one out to me and I take it. “You ever talk?” He asks again and I roll my eyes.

 

“Yeah. Just not to you.” I say, and hear Victor give a low ‘oooh’, which Reggie joins in on. 

 

“You just did though.” Victor says, and I sigh, looking back at Patrick. 

 

“Light?” I say, and he simply flicks the lighter at me, as if to show me that yes, he had a light. I was about to say something when the trans am takes a sharp turn, and I lurch forward. My entire face goes red as I nearly hit him in the nose with my tits, and I lean back instinctively, hitting my head on the low ceiling. “Shit, Reggie!”

 

“Damn, you don’t need to let me motorboat you for me to light your cigarette, baby.” Patrick shakes his hair out of his face, shooting me an all toothy grin. “You always that desperate?” I lean down so he can light my cigarette, and I feel a little smug when I blow the smoke directly into his face.   
  
“I’m not desperate.” I retort dryly. 

 

“I’m not so sure about that, what do you guys think?” Victor says, and I barely have time to react before he grabs my dress and flips it up. I squeal, Patrick bursts out laughing, and Henry turns around to see what all the ruckus is. At the same time, Reggie hits the brakes and I fall backwards.

 

Thankfully, that covered up my panties, but it also meant I was laying across the both of them now. Patrick was still laughing, coughing on his cigarette smoke and Victor was smirking like the cat that caught the mouse. With nothing else to lose here, I crack my fist across his jaw, making him bite down hard on his tongue, and the side of his face smack directly into the window.

 

“Motherfucker.” I sit up, now able to worm my way between them. Victor wipes a bit of blood away from his bottom lip and calls me a “bith”, whatever that is. Patrick is still laughing, and wraps an arm around my shoulders.

 

“You can rock with us anytime.” He says directly in my ear, making me lean away. His fingers are toying with my bra strap, and I try to shrug them away. “Nice panties, by the way.” His other hand touches my thigh, slipping farther and farther up before I kick him hard. 

 

“Stop touching me.” I bite out, and Henry and Reggie both give low ‘ooohs’. Patrick just licked his lips at me and retracted the hand on my thigh, but kept his arm wrapped around my shoulder. I just took a shaky drag from my cigarette and hoped the car ride would be over soon.

 

Whatever got me away from Patrick Hockstetter fastest.


End file.
